Murder rate way down, unsolved murder rate way up*

As unbelievable as Hadiya Pendleton’s ruthless murder, less than a mile from President Obama’s home in Chicago, is the reality that only 66% of those who murder are ever brought to justice. Pendleton’s murderer continues to remains at-large.

Marred by the mass-shootings of 2012 was America’s statistical achievement of seeing the lowest murder rate in the past 50 years. Hidden by the smoke of the gun debate is the disturbing reality that unsolved murders are nearing an all-time high.

Pendleton was murdered a mile from Pres Obama's home.

In 2011, according to the US Department of Justice, the murder rate was 4.8 per 100,000 people, which is contrasted to the 1980 high-water-mark of 10.2 per 100,000. It is estimated that after non-culpable homicide cases for 2012 are wound-up, the statistic will be around 4.6 – the rate hit back in 1963.

When graphed on a chart, the national murder rate looks like a bell-curve, with murders steadily increasing from 1960 to 1980 and then decreasing ever since. The lowest murder rate during the past 100-years was in 1957 – there were 4.0 per 100,000. If society does nothing, the projection is such that the US will near the 4.0 mark in a few years.

Vice President Joe Biden, outlined nine proposals for reducing homicides, which include: requiring background checks for all gun sales, banning assault weapons, limiting ammunition magazines to ten rounds, providing tax dollars for gun violence research, school emergency preparedness, and mental health coverage. Each recommendation noted that ‘no single law, or even a set of laws, can prevent an act of violence.’ Yet none focus on apprehending perpetrators.

The US has serious problems, for example, from 2011 to 2012 murders in Chicago increased by 38% to a devastating 506. Pendleton’s murder marks number 42 for 2013. By contrast, 418 people were murdered in New York City last year and seven so far have been murdered in 2013.

According to the UNODC, every US Territory, over the past decade, has seen a general increase in murders. Puerto Rico has the highest murder rate at 26.2 per 100,000 people. A record breaking 1,136 murders occurred in 2011 alone. Yet, Puerto Rico boasts twice as many police officers per capita as any US state.

Shockingly, only 25% of the murders in Puerto Rico result in the police apprehending the culprit. This was the case in New Orleans in 2010. Last year, homicide investigators improved this number to 39%, and were able to reduce murders by 3%. It is unfathomable that over half of the 193 murders during 2012 resulted in an accused being brought before the courts.

From 1980 to 2008 nearly 185,000 homicides went unsolved in the US, according to a Scripps Howard News Service study. Some cities, like New Orleans, have low murder clearance rates. Meaning the police were able to present the court with an accused. Others, like Washington, DC, have nearly doubled their success rate to a laudable 96%. Nearly 6,000 homicides go unsolved every year in the US. A national average of 66% is unacceptable.

While the Biden working group and the emotions of the nation cling to media images of recent shootings, a larger problem is law enforcement’s inability to bring more suspects before the courts.

If America truly cares about justice for victims’ families, society needs to invest resources to bring perpetrators to justice. Sophisticated investigating techniques and the quashing of minor criminal offences that are working in Washington, DC and New York City should be used to help municipalities like Chicago and New Orleans and territories like Puerto Rico.

When does society begin the conversation of addressing low murder clearance rates? Society needs to move beyond looking at the sensationalizing effect of recent mass shootings and see the big picture.

The US murder rate is at a 50 year low and dropping, despite recent outliers in the data. Concern, which should be sounding alarms, is the low national average of solving these murders.

To quote former President Bill Clinton, “There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.” The US has the knowledge and the resources to better solve homicides; there is void of political will power. It is time to implement successful techniques to bring murderers to justice.

If society truly cares about tackling murders, the debate needs to be about unsolved crimes, supporting local law enforcement, and not about the implementation devices (eg guns) used to commit the offence. 
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*M Soper, Murder rate way down, unsolved murder rate way up, OpEd, Western Slope Watchdog 17 February 2013: 4+ <http://westernslopewatchdog.com/2013/02/murder-rate-way-down-but-unsolved-murders-way-up/> accessed 18 February 2013

Arizona shooting ignites debate over freedom of speech, right to bear arms & access to elected officials

A horrible and tragic shooting has struck the United States, only this time a member of Congress was shot in the head and is in critical, but stable condition. Six people were killed at a political event in Tuscan, Arizona on Saturday, 8 January 2011, including senior Federal Judge John Roll, a nine year old girl and four others. Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, and 12 others were injured during the shooting. The accused is Jared Loughner, a 22-year old Army reject who was unemployed and living with his parents at the time of the tragedy. Loughner was reportedly rejected for reasons of mental unsoundness, a point which will more than likely be a defence to his two counts of federal murder charges and one count of attempting to assassinate a member of the United States’ Congress. Separate charges will ensue for liability under Arizona criminal law. Both Arizona and the US have the penal sanction of capital punishment as a tariff for criminal liability. In my opinion, the justice system should render justice and a capital penalty for the actions of the accused.

The greatest fear stemming from this shooting is (i) antigun legislation and (ii) access to all-ready-elite-members-of-congress being limited due to security - which is horrible for any ‘democratic-republic’, such as the US, Canada and many EU states. No crime is solved by more legislation - bad things happen to good people and that's a fact of life - as a society we cannot prevent all harm, as to do so would be to have safety without liberty or freedom. “If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom” – President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969). Rebuts to arguments concerning freedom, liberty and opportunity tend to be based on the notion of creating a more secure society. Think about it, health care legislation was passed in 2010 to give Americans the ‘peace of mind’ that they will not have to worry about what happens when they get ill or are the victims of a delictual liability. In the name of public safety and security legislation is being introduced in the halls of Congress to limit the scope of the Second Amendment and undermine a fundamental right enjoyed by Americans. Firearm ownership is a right enshrined in higher law, which is unlike a driver’s license for a motor vehicle, which is a privilege not to be abused. America’s third President and early advocate for limited government, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) proclaimed, “The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”

Rep Giffords was shot in front of a Safeway

Nationally sensationalized and emotionally devastating catastrophes tend to produce an outcry for reform and prevention. The Tuscan supermarket shooting is no exception. In a highly charged polarized environment, liberal bloggers began accusing former Alaska Governor and 2008 GOP Vice-Presidential nominee, Sarah Palin as having been the promulgating factor behind the assassination attempt of US Representative Giffords. Palin had listed the congresswoman’s seat on her “cross-hairs” targeted districts. If Palin’s rhetoric is “blood libel”, then perhaps the Democrats need to re-assess their own political free speech. In October 2010, American Vice-President Joe Biden told party stalwarts at a fundraiser in Minnesota that he was going to “strangle Republicans” who complained about the budget or how he encouraged supporters to “kill patriotic Republicans” who were using ‘procedure and substance to block a health care vote’ in the US Senate. Therefore, if President Barak Obama’s memorial conversation to the country about how “discourse has become so sharply polarised [...] we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do - it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds”, then he assumedly means both sides of the political spectrum. If this presumption is in the affirmative, then ‘Hollywood’ sensational ‘documentaries’, such as the one funded by top Democratic Party donor and billion George Soros, which celebrates left-wing terrorists who plotted to napalm Republicans at the 2008 GOP Convention (and encourages ‘freedom fighting’ tactics in ridding America of its second largest political party) a “wound” which does not serve to heal the widening partisan divide of the last decade. If the president wants to be a leader, then he himself needs to reign in members of his own party who have crept into militant like tactics before chiding opposition rhetoric. Otherwise it looks as if the president is but a mere politician preparing for another campaign.

A shooting is horrible, though it hasn’t taking long for politicians and the media to turn this random event into a national catastrophe. Let’s get the facts straight, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 46 individuals are victims of ‘murder’ every single day of the year in the US. Everyone with ‘bleeding liberal hearts’ need to lighten up see this in perspective of the larger picture of falling victim to over emotionalizing one tragic shooting over another. Let's not let one horrible event destroy the purity of our current democratic system.